Insights · 10 min read
A software development RFP has one job: getting several vendors to price the same thing. Here are the sections that make proposals comparable and the mistakes that make them noise.
By GGP Editorial
Most companies write a software development RFP the way they write an internal memo: a lot of background, a wishlist of features, and nothing that lets a vendor say what anything costs. The proposals come back and none of them are comparable, and the whole exercise gets blamed on the vendors.
I run a software development company, and I have read a lot of RFPs. The ones that produce good proposals share a small set of habits. The ones that produce noise share another. This article is the first set, so your selection process ends in a decision instead of a pile of PDFs.
An RFP exists to solve one problem: getting several vendors to price the same thing so you can compare them fairly. That is its only real job. It is not a place to explain your full company history, and it is not a substitute for a requirements document.
This matters because the most common way an RFP fails is by asking vendors to guess. When you leave out scope, budget, or constraints, each vendor fills the gaps differently, and you get quotes that differ by a factor of three for reasons that have nothing to do with their competence. We have written about why custom software quotes vary, and the short version is that vendors price your clarity as much as your scope.
There is also a question of whether you need an RFP at all. For a small build, a direct conversation with two or three shortlisted companies is often faster and tells you more than a formal document. An RFP earns its keep when the project is large enough, or the stakeholder group wide enough, that you need a written record of what you asked and how each vendor answered.
The RFP is a tool for a specific situation, not a default. Use one when the project is big enough to justify the overhead, when several departments have to sign off, or when you have a formal procurement process that requires written responses.
Skip it when the project is small, when the requirements are still moving, or when you have already shortlisted two or three companies you trust. In those cases a scoping call produces better information faster. The RFP adds the most value when you are comparing vendors you do not yet know well and need a paper trail.
A good RFP has about seven sections. Each one answers a question a vendor needs resolved before they can give you a real price.
| Section | What it answers | What goes wrong if you skip it |
|---|---|---|
| Project background | what problem you are solving and for whom | vendors price the wrong problem |
| Scope and goals | what the system must do and what success looks like | vague scope and wild proposals |
| Technical context | systems it must connect to, existing stack | surprises that inflate the estimate |
| Constraints | budget range, timeline, compliance, security | vendors guess, quotes stop comparing |
| Deliverables and process | what you expect to receive and when | mismatched expectations |
| Evaluation criteria | how you will score responses | you pick on price alone |
| Vendor questions | the information you need back | you forget to ask what matters |
The section most people overdo is the background. Two paragraphs are enough. The section most people underdo is the constraints, because naming a budget feels uncomfortable. But a budget range is the single most useful thing you can hand a vendor. It lets them tell you what is realistic at that number, instead of giving you a fantasy figure and a disappointed face later.
The scope section is where RFPs go soft. People paste a feature list and call it a scope. A feature list tells a vendor what buttons exist. It does not tell them what the system has to get right.
Write the scope as a set of outcomes. Who uses the system, what they need to be able to do, and what has to be true for the project to count as done. Attach the feature list as a supplement, not the headline. The outcomes are what a vendor sizes the build against.
If you want to go deeper on the difference between a feature list and something a team can actually build from, our guide to writing a software requirements document covers the longer form. An RFP references that level of detail. It does not have to contain all of it.
Budget, timeline, and any rules the system has to follow should be in the RFP, not hidden until the second call. This includes compliance (card data, personal data, regulated transactions), the systems you need to integrate with, and any hard deadline driven by a launch or a contract.
Vendors ask about these things in the first call anyway. Putting them in the document means every vendor answers the same question, and you stop getting proposals built on different assumptions. It also filters out vendors who cannot handle a specific requirement, which saves you a round of meetings.
One constraint worth being explicit about is ownership. Say who owns the source code and the intellectual property when the project ends. A vendor's answer tells you a lot about how they run their business, and it is much easier to settle in the RFP than during contract negotiation.
The questions you put to vendors decide the quality of what comes back. The useful ones are specific and revealing.
Ask who will actually work on the project and how senior they are, not how many people the company employs. Ask them to describe a similar project they have shipped and what went wrong on it. Ask how they handle changes mid-build and how they will report progress. Ask for a reference you can call.
These questions separate companies that build software from companies that sell software. Our piece on choosing a software development company has the full list, and the same questions work whether you are reading an RFP response or sitting in a first call.
Decide how you will score responses before they arrive, not after. Otherwise the strongest proposal loses to the one with the best formatting or the lowest number.
Weight the criteria and write them down. Price is one factor, but it should not be the only one. Team seniority, relevant experience, communication, and how a vendor handles risk all belong on the list. A proposal that is 15 percent more expensive but comes from a senior team that has shipped your exact kind of system is usually the better buy, and you want the scoring to say so before you are tempted to pick the cheapest bid.
A useful vendor response does not just echo your scope back at you. It tells you what they understood, what they would clarify, and where they see risk. It gives you a team, a timeline, and a price tied to a defined scope. It flags the things you asked for that will be expensive, instead of burying them.
Treat a response that is suspiciously cheap, suspiciously fast, or suspiciously vague the same way: with caution. Cheap usually means the vendor scoped something smaller than you described. Fast usually means the same. Vague means you will pay for the clarity later, during the build.
Before you email the RFP to anyone, run through this list.
If you can check all seven, the RFP will do its job. If you cannot, fix the gaps before you send it, because every gap becomes a different vendor guess and a different price.
GlobeSoft is a China-based software development company with a global delivery model, 40-plus engineers, and more than 300 delivered projects. We respond to RFPs the same way we run projects: we read the scope, ask the clarifying questions up front, and come back with a team, a timeline, and a price tied to what you actually described.
Our stack runs on Java, Spring Boot, Spring Cloud, Go, Node, Python, Vue, and React, with MySQL, Redis, and Nginx underneath, and we have delivered systems for trading, payments, property management, and financial management across markets like Brazil, South Africa, Singapore, and the US. We work in English and Portuguese, and our clients own their source code.
If you are drafting an RFP and want a second read on it before you send it, that is a conversation we are happy to have. It costs you nothing and usually saves a round of back-and-forth with every vendor you approach.
Is an RFP the same as a requirements document?
No. A requirements document describes what the system does in detail. An RFP is the document you send to vendors to solicit proposals, and it points to or summarizes the requirements. They overlap, but they have different jobs.
How long should an RFP be?
Shorter than most people think. A focused RFP is five to ten pages. Anything much longer is usually padding, and vendors have to read through the padding to find the constraints.
Should I put a budget in the RFP?
Yes. A budget range makes proposals comparable and lets vendors tell you what is realistic at your number. Hiding the budget does not make quotes cheaper. It makes them less useful.
How many vendors should I send the RFP to?
Three to five shortlisted companies is a good number. Enough to compare, few enough that you can read each response properly and interview the finalists.
What is the biggest mistake in an RFP?
Vague scope. When vendors cannot tell what you are building, they each guess differently and the proposals stop being comparable. The second biggest is no budget, which has the same effect.
A well-written RFP is a cheap way to buy certainty on a big spend. Describe the outcomes, name the constraints, and ask the questions that separate builders from sellers, and your shortlist conversation will be about the things that actually decide whether the project succeeds.
Tell us what you are building and where you are today. We typically reply within 24 hours.
